Hawkeyes find their RB

Alabama running back Eric Graham has put up huge numbers each of the past two seasons at Autauga Academy. As a junior, the 5-foot-10, 200-pound Graham had 2,387 yards and 33 touchdowns and followed that up with 1,983 yards and 27 touchdowns his senior year. Still, not a lot of major college interest came his way until just recently when he received his latest ACT results.

"He was late on taking the ACT," said Autauga Academy head coach Mike Sims. "He took it once in October and then again in December. Even though he had around a 3.0 GPA, it doesn't really matter if you don't have the ACT score. He just got that out of the way in the last month."

Once he achieved a qualifying test score, Graham received late interest from Iowa, Notre Dame, Kentucky, Mississippi State, and Toledo, according to Sims. For Iowa, that interest started with a phone call, which led to an in-home visit from recruiting coordinator Seth Wallace last week.

"Coach Kelvin Bell kind of started the process and called down here to get some information on him," Sims said. "Then they sent Coach Seth Wallace down here to visit him and they asked Eric to stick with them through all the chaos."

The chaos was due to the fact that Iowa already had a running back commit in Florida native Karan Higdon, but there was a chance they might lose him to Michigan the week of signing day. Once that appeared to be the case, the Hawkeyes were quickly in contact with Graham with news of a scholarship offer.

"They brought him in for an official visit this past weekend and then they just offered last night and closed the deal this morning," said Sims.

While it has been a whirlwind of a recruiting process in recent days, Sims is happy that Graham has found a home in the Big Ten and says that it should be a great fit.

"I think Eric is going to be a very good fit for the Big Ten," Sims said. "He's about 5-10, 200 pounds, and is very athletic and explosive. He's run a sub 10.9 in the 100 (meter dash) and just does some things that you don't see people do a whole lot. He can hit full speed in his first two steps and just being that big and powerful with that kind of quickness, it makes you a very dangerous runner."